A couple days ago I posted this picture of my old sink, hooked up to a hose outside. I fill a basin with hot water to wash stuff once a day. It's been a great thing.

We believe in paper and plastic right now. There is a sharpie on the table, the rule is get a cup, label with date and name, you get one cup a day. And then put it in the paper bag for recyclables.

Also, I have an old cypress cabinet that I use to hold my old quilts (a weakness from before parenthood). I moved quilts to my daughter's closet, and that became our pantry. Much handier than boxes. Also, I cleaned and rearranged closets and was able to temporarily relocate Kitchen items I might need during the demo, rather than putting in boxes. That's been really helpful when I've needed to get stuff. No need to dig thru boxes, it's on a shelf -- I just remember which closet, which bedroom! And an added bonus -- when we get done with the kitchen, I'll have spare room (to fill up with more crap).

Don't pack you sharp knives, cheese cutter, peeler, can opener, or spatulas. Or tongs. You need those for the grill. Or non-stick spray. Coat a paper bowl with it and you can cook an egg in the MW.

During the demo, everything was unplugged and then sheets of plastic went over the temp kitchen area, the computers, the couches and chairs. I read here about the fine drywall dust, but it is reallllllly fine, and gets everywhere. The plastic sheets really helped.

If you are trying to protect floors, go to a furniture store and get large cardboard pieces to put over it to protect it. Vacuum it everynight to keep the drywall dust from getting tracked everywhere. Oh, and luckily, I didn't throw out my old vacuum. I've been using it after the contractor gets out the big stuff with his shop vac. That shop vac smells, so I prefer that he use it minimally and I do the finish work.

There's lots more, but I can't remember.

Here is a link that might be useful: outdoor sink thread

I agree with everything rjr220 said. We used paper and plastic as well. Use the heavy duty plastic! I bought the plates and plastic at BJs in bulk. In addition, I kept out one 'real' plate, bowl, glass, mug, knife, fork and spoon for each of us. Then I color-coded them with colored masking tape with a chart inside the door of one of our old cabinets. If anyone wanted to use 'real', they were responsible for washing it...in our basement sink. I kept our two wall cabinets, stacked them on one another and screwed them together. I kept the real eating utensils in there as well as spices, bowls, and other things I can't remember now! LOL. I kept the plastic/paper, pots and pans and cooking utensils in two large storage bins with lids under a folding table. I set the kitchen up with two folding tables in a very small galley setup that included our refrigerator and a tall shelf storage rack that housed all the food and wraps, coffee and powdered drinks. One table had the microwave, hot plate and toaster/convection oven. The other had was the work surface and also had the dish bin (I had three bins, one in the 'kitchen' and two in the basement- one to wash in and on to carry the cleans back upstairs in) on it for cooking utensils. This is where I served dinner. We ate in the family room since the living room had all the cabinets and the dining room had the living room tables and all of the appliances. We were DIY and this went on that way for 9 months. Oh the thrill of it all!

By all means, use the tub! Going up and downstairs for every drop of water gets old real quickly!

Don't forget that you can fill a smaller container at a shallow lavatory sink and transfer the water to a larger container like a dishpan or bucket. It's a DUH headslap concept.

Don't forget to keep out the wine opener, can opener, rubber scraper, utensil fork, dishcloths, apron, trays with high sides for transferring stuff. Keep out some dishtowels for surface covers for drying dishes as well as use as a towel. Also lightbulbs--we've smashed a number of them in our clip-on construction light units.

I went looking for the furniture polish and couldn't find it so had to buy new bottle--this for maintenance of the surfaces in room adjacent to the battle.

Make a decision about where the coffee pot, telephone, food items, etc. will be kept and try to keep to that decision. Otherwise, stuff tends to float to more places. One problem for us has been that the circuit for an essential outlet may suddenly become unavailable for long periods of time, so consider where else the coffee pot or the other appliances might be connected.

I very much regret selling sending our old card tables to the Goodwill when we cleaned out a storage space in anticipation of the renovation project. Those tables would offer us much better working and storage surfaces than the makeshift ones we're spontaneously using, including chair seats, stools, etc.

Don't forget how great a laundry basket can be for hauling things on stairways.

Shoe boxes are good for holding like-type items, including silverware.

We've used lightweight plastic dropcloths, etc. to staple over doorways to contain the dust. Try to remember to close doors to all interior rooms during construction as much as possible. Get some earplugs.

We are primarily using paper and plastic but for the coffee cups, grilling utensils,etc. I bought a double set of buspans (used in restaurants) from Sam's Club. I set them up in my bathroom, one in the tub for washing and the other w/ the old dish drainer inside sitting beside the tub where I can place the washed dishes to drain and dry. It's getting tiresome but at least I have somewhere to clean whatever real dishes I care to use.

Your feedback is great! I do love the outdoor sink but I don't want the contractor to take his time figuring it out (I'm planning on an 8 week job...).

Thanks for all the reminders to cover the furniture with plastic and I especially like the buspans-in-the-tub idea. That will make it feel a little less like a tub and I won't feel so weird about stacking things in there. At least I can pull the curtain to hide it!

I think I'll give in and buy a bunch of bottled water too. The kids believe bathroom water is different than kitchen water and it's not worth the arguement.

My DH was my GC, and he very cleverly cut the old sink and counter out of the cabinets, so between demo and cabinets, and then when we had cabinets but no counter, he popped the whole counter/sink insert on top until our new counters were in. This was probably the best temporary thing we did, as we even had the disposal attached. This picture shows the old cabinet with the sink cutout on top.

If you have to use the bathtub -- invest in a really cushy mat so you have something to kneel on.

We have an outdoor utility sink that my husband rigged up outside, and it is nice not to have to climb stairs to do wishes. We keep a dish bin near the eating table, so we can gather dirty silverware and serving bowls. (We use paper plates and plastic cups otherwise.) We take it out to the utility sink when we need to wash up.